The present inventions relate to methods and systems for managing an electronic calendar.
An electronic calendar is typically implemented on a data processing system, such as a general purpose computer system or a personal digital assistant (PDA) or a cellular telephone or a media player (e.g. an iPod) or other types of devices. These electronic calendars typically allow a user to display different time intervals or time ranges within a calendar. For example, an electronic calendar will typically allow a user to display at least a portion of a day, a full day, a portion of a week or a full week, several weeks, or a month, or a plurality of months, or even multiple years. The electronic calendars further typically include user interfaces for allowing a user to move between the different time durations or time ranges and to enter events and reminders onto the calendar. The events and/or reminders typically include some text specifying the event as well as data specifying the duration in time of the event and other information. A user can typically save these reminders or events at a particular time on the calendar and then later retrieve the information from the calendar to see what events are upcoming, to plan for events, etc.
Oftentimes, an event may require several people to attend the event, such as a meeting or a party, etc. In these circumstances, the creator of the event on the calendar will typically send out an invitation to those being invited to or requested to attend the event. Prior data processing systems allow a user to create an event on a calendar and then cause an electronic message to be sent out to those being invited or requested to attend the event. The message may be sent by an electronic message, such as email, or some other type of notification about the event. These invitations are received by attendees or others required to attend in an email form which does not display the invitation in a calendar or in the context of a calendar with other events listed on the calendar which have already been accepted. Hence, a user cannot see the date and time of the invitation in the context of other events already on the user's calendar. Moreover, prior systems and methods do not include a calendar which is devoted to showing invitations which have not yet been accepted.